At a glance, it doesn't even seem like news: A prep school with a great track record sends all of its graduating seniors to college, for the fourth year in a row.

But it is. Especially when you consider that when Urban Prep, which now has three Chicago campuses, was founded in 2006, only 4 percent of its students were reading at grade level at the start of the school year, that 85 percent of its students come from low-income families and that many of its students are still at least two grade levels behind when they enroll.

It's no wonder that at the Thursday celebration of all 167 seniors' college acceptances, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said, "I want everyone in this city, I want everyone in this country, to look up here."